Existence is Elsewhere
by nonameface58
Summary: Somewhere between trying to win the girl and giving her space to make her own choices, he inevitably lost her as what happens to every creature of the dark: for Damon is a creature whose darkness defines his existence. One-shot.


**A/N: This one-shot came out unexpected as it gravitates between time and space. Any inconsistences that you might notice are sort of meant to be. Title is inspired by Andre Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism. Feedback is welcome!**

**Existence is Elsewhere**

He loves old buildings. They remind him of himself. Youth may colour his features handsome, but his heart holds stories of ancient times. In vampire verse, he's just a newbie learning to adjust to the world. There are others more powerful and wise than him. But Damon knows this as sure as he knows his name: at heart he will always be old.

Sometimes he wonders whether he made a mistake going back to Mystic Falls. What else did he gather in his outstretched hands but more heartbreak? He feels disgusted at being unable to let go of the past – as much as he claims to be unaffected by it. History has a way of catching up with him and he's waiting for the day when he can slip its claws, even for a second. He runs ahead, faster than life, faster than the beat of his non-beating heart (over the years he's set a tempo to measure his heartbeats – is a non-living person not allowed that?) It's like a game, he skips and jumps and at times even pretends the beating came to a halt. He imitates the ECG machine, trying to recover the stolen heartbeat, _beep beep_… until it slows and then there's no sound.

It's times like these when Damon breaks out his best bottle of champagne to celebrate this lack of human heartbeats (Stefan can only look at him in exasperation and claims that peerless nights would drive a person to such lunacy – but what does his brother know?)

Damon hates being pitied. He'd rather have his heart ripped out and thrown to the dogs. The first time Elena looked at him with pity he almost growled at the expression in her eyes, as if he were some lonely puppy in search of shelter. Pity is for the homeless and circus freaks, Damon savagely thinks. He wants people to know that his choice of lifestyle is self-imposed _Katherine…Elena…fuckingKatherineandElena_ have nothing to do with it – saying their names together drives him to a rage he's never experienced before and no matter how hard he tries their names form a chain and chant in his head, mocking, laughing, seductively whispering sinful things that just cannot, will not happen until Damon wants to tear his hair out from the force of keeping those voices at bay. He hates how at the end of the day as soon as someone takes a look at him, they make it about the 'girl.' And therein starts the process of "pity the love-struck vampire" as it plays out year after year.

It's been years since he first met Elena, or has it been decades? Damon doesn't know. He transitions from one crumbling structure to another hoping to absorb history as he makes contact with each (new) **old** wall. He presses his ears to the walls heaving with emotion, snapping it shut, _all in_, urging them to unburden the heartbreak they've witnessed within their vicinity – lovers spurned, lives ruined, and families torn apart. He almost prides on his veracity to soak each new story and tuck it lovingly in a corner of his _dead_, lifeless heart (he can find no paper to write down a journal entry, and really history deserves a more p e r m a n e n t p l a c e). A century ago, he might have wondered why only tragedy and destruction spoke to him. He's no closer to the answer still, but now it doesn't matter because it's what holds him together.

Somewhere between trying to win the girl and giving her space to make her own choices, he inevitably lost her as happens to every creature of the dark: for Damon is a creature whose **darkness **defines his existence. On rainy nights, when he is sitting within a corner of another groaning structure in shambles with nothing but hesitant moonlight to keep him company he counts on his fingers the people he's lost (unsurprisingly the number never exceeds two).

_He'll never admit to himself that the number is always greater; he only chooses to employ the first two fingers in this Grand Recounting of Absent Figures – a course he's grown fond of over the years. _

Even with his Lapis lazuli ring Damon avoids the sun. He's never been a fan of being surrounded by light, bright images – his experiencing a Fata Morgana more frequently in the sunlight is just a coincidence, he tells himself. The only time he enjoys being out in the sun is when the structures tell him so – they're his own personal deities, each wall a god of some ancient wish or prayer. He's miles away from ever deciphering their secrets – something that makes him respect their elderly status a bit more.

Now that he has no one to sit next to and promise an eternity of misery, no one to watch guard at night in secret, no one to passionately hate, Damon is free from the shackles of human bonds and the worry and fear that comes from trying to protect someone (with the constant **f e a r** that you might not be able to, _you would not be able to_..) But truth be told Damon Salvatore is afraid. It's not the promise of the next mirage that may drive him to another continent. It definitely isn't his lonely existence (Damon prefers to think of it as his "alone time" in life's long marathon). His single biggest fear is that he'll _**o u t l i v e **_history – that he'll have to watch every wall he's lovingly caressed with light expectant touches crumble in front of his very eyes – watch the earth swallow his last non-living companions. And then where would that leave **him**? Who'll tell him his story isn't the most tragic one, that lovers before him have been and gone, that's he's just another chapter in the dusty annals of time?

It's this fear that drives him to whisper words of love and soothe the frayed nerves of every companion destined for its imminent end. Words he wished he'd heard in his lifetime.

_You matter. Depart gently, my friend_.


End file.
